Objective

Most maritime products are typically associated with large investments and are seldom built in large series. Where other modes of transport benefit from the economy of series production, this is not the case for maritime products which are typically designed to refined customer requirements increasingly determined by the need for high efficiency, flexibility and low environmental impact at a competitive price. Product design is thus subject to global trade-offs among traditional constraints (customer needs, technical requirements, cost) and new requirements (life-cycle, environmental impact, rules).One of the most important design objectives is to minimise total cost over the economic life cycle of the product, taking into account maintenance, refitting, renewal, manning, recycling, environmental footprint, etc. The trade-off among all these requirements must be assessed and evaluated in the first steps of the design process on the basis of customer / owner specifications. Advanced product design needs to adapt to profound, sometimes contradicting requirements and assure a flexible and optimised performance over the entire life-cycle for varying operational conditions. This calls for greatly improved design tools including multi-objective optimisation and finally virtual testing of the overall design and its components.HOLISHIP (HOLIstic optimisation of SHIP design and operation for life-cycle) addresses these urgent industry needs by the development of innovative design methodologies, integrating design requirements (technical constraints, performance indicators, life-cycle cost, environmental impact) at an early design stage and for the entire life-cycle in an integrated design environment. Design integration will be implemented in practice by the development of integrated design s/w platforms and demonstrated by digital mock-ups and industry led application studies on the design and performance of ships, marine equipment and maritime assets in general.

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HOLISHIP (HOLIstic optimisation of SHIP design and operation for life cycle)

HOLISHIP - HOLIstic optimisation of SHIP design and operation for life cycleThe face of ship design is changing. The vastly increasing complexity of European built ships and maritime structures as well as the growing number of rules and regulations call for novel concepts of product design and testing. HOLISHIP develops the next generation of ship design systems for the European maritime industry by addressing urgent problems of today’s ship design practice, which consider future requirements and challenges by introducing a novel holistic ship design concept for life cycle. Most maritime assets (ships and marine structures) are typically associated with large investments and are seldom built in large series. Where the automotive, rail and aircraft industry benefit from the economy of series production, this is not the case for maritime structures which are typically designed to refined customer requirements increasingly determined by the need for high efficiency, flexibility and low environmental impact at a competitive price. In the maritime field, product design is thus subject to global trade-offs among traditional constraints (customer needs, technical requirements, cost) and new requirements such as life-cycle cost, environmental impact, enhanced safety rules. One of the most important design objectives is to minimise the life-cycle cost, taking into account maintenance, refitting, renewal, manning, recycling, environmental footprint, etc. The trade-off among all these requirements must be assessed and evaluated efficiently and reliably in the first steps of the design process on the basis of customer / owner specifications.The above requirements, constraints and objectives call for novel design tools including multi-objective optimisation and virtual testing of the overall design and its components as well as its economic and ecologic impact. HOLISHIP addresses these urgent industrial and societal needs by the development of innovative design methodologies and tools that can be employed already at an early design stage, while looking for the entire life-cycle in an integrated design environment. The introduced holistic concept is implemented in integrated design s/w platforms and allows the exploration of the huge design space in comparatively short lead times. The HOLISHIP design approach is demonstrated by digital mock-ups and a large range of industry led application studies on the design and performance of ships maritime structures.HOLISHIP started in September 2016 and is a four years project ( www.holiship.eu) .

The HOLISHIP project officially started on 1st of September 2016 and kicked-off during a meeting in Athens on 29th of September 2016. For the effective management of the project three (3) clusters of workpackages were established and associated cluster managers appointed. During the first 18 months period project work focused on development activities in cluster 1 (tool developments) and cluster 2 (set-up of s/w integration platforms). The majority of the specified application cases (AC), which will be using the developed tools and design s/w platforms from cluster 1 and 2, as well as demonstrating the impact of the project’s developments, will start according to plan in month 24, after the end of the present reporting period. However, some ACs commenced already during the present period, thus giving feedback to the tool and platform developments.In the main development part of the project, i.e. Clusters 1 and 2, work progressed towards the first three important project Milestones: • MS 1 – Tools specification in Month 9, • MS 2 – Integration Concept ready in Month 12, and • MS 3 – Prototype Integration in Month 18; which have been accomplished in time. In the first Cluster a number of tools have been selected based on requirements stemming from overall ship design considerations as well as specific requirements resulting from Application Cases in the project. Some 15 tools have been practically integrated into the HOLISHIP platform from WP 7 already on the basis of the earlier specifications. These include s/w packages for a large variety of hydrodynamic and hydrostatic, structural and engine / energy related analyses. The work continues into the second phase of the project and further tools to be integrated will also include comprehensive cost and life cycle analysis. Prototype integration has been achieved and demonstrated for the case of a RoPAX ferry optimisation using already integrated hydrostatic/stability, design of arrangements, hydrodynamic and engine simulation tools. Results of this case study have been published, among others, in the proceedings of the TRA 2018 – Vienna conference.

The design of ships and of maritime assets in general, is a complex endeavour requiring the successful coordination of many disciplines, of both technical and non-technical nature, and of individual experts to arrive at valuable design solutions covering the entire life-cycle of a vessel. In today’s practice only parts of the ship’s life-cycle are integrated on common data and s/w platforms. This depends on the degree of integration of modern information and communication technology (ICT) into the ship design process. In a step wise approach HOLISHIP fills the gap between different, often unconnected design disciplines on one hand and design and life cycle analysis on the other hand in a single platform which allows to • Easily define, via a product configuration module, a basic “functional” design; • Assess the environmental, energy efficiency and economic performance of the vessel via Key performance Indicators (KPI) including evaluation of different operational profiles and maintenance strategies.• Weighting-up, via a screening mathematical optimisation tool (Decision Support System DSS) the most effective decisions/strategies to be assumed at any stage of the product’s life cycle, as a function of design features, governing lifecycle uncertainties (e.g. fuel, chartering) to support owners’ business targets. • Verify the impact of different economic, environmental and operational scenarios on the validity of the investment.Continuing from the presently already established prototype integration HOLISHIP will at the end of the project deliver a modular and customisable maritime design system which will allow addressing all relevant design challenges in a single environment while still allowing to pick individual tools of choice for a given task. The architecture of the HOLISHIP platforms ensures tools can be individually reconfigured and new software can be easily adopted and integrated to meet also future requirements and thus achieve inherent sustainability. The HOLISHIP developments will lead to direct cost reductions in the ship design process, while allowing the exploration a multitude of design alternatives and the identification of optimal solutions for the life cycle performance of designed vessels. In short: HOLISHIP delivers better, more energy efficient and environmentally friendly ships in less time and at less cost.

Overview - Design Synthesis Concept

HOLISHIP Poster for the TRA 2018 conference

HOLISHIP Poster for Waterborne TP, 2018

Coupling of tools for a RoPAX optimsation case in the HOLISHIP platform

A general idea of preconditions the different tools must fulfil to be useful in the scope of HOLISHIP has been described in the objectives section. This needs to be refined in close collaboration with the WP3 partners. The deliverable then defines the requirements and standards that all developments in WP3 will be based upon.